US drone strikes in Pakistan : Strikes and casualties | Trend | US drone strikes in Pakistan : Strikes and casualties | Trend |
On 8 February 2013, the US completed 364 drone strikes in Pakistan, killing between 2,640 to 3,474 persons, of which 473 to 893 civilians, including 176 children, and causing 1,270 to 1,433 injured. Out of the 364 strikes, 312 or 86% were ordered by president Obama, the Nobel prize winner for Peace.
The first reported US drone attack in Pakistan took place in June 2004, killing up to 8 people, including 2 children aged 10 and 16. The Pakistan drone war is a special case in which operations fall under the responsibility of the CIA, not the Pentagon — making it a war against alleged al-Qaeda and Taliban combatants and civilian targets engaged by a foreign non-military organization, thus violating on severalo accounts the rulings of the international humanitarian law.
The facts fly in the face of president Obama's January 2012 claim that the drone campaign in Pakistan is a "targeted, focused effort" that "has not caused a huge number of civilian casualties". The killing of up to 800+ civilians does not qualify the CIA-led drone war as a precisely targeted one, and the slaughtering of 176 children is nothing short of a crime. Investigators of the Sunday Times have found that dozens of civilians have been killed after they had come to help rescue victims or when attending funerals. In fact, a CIA tactic consists of using the body of a killed man as bait to attract and take out higher brass alleged militants coming to attend the man's funeral. When questioned about these practices, a senior US administration official answered that "We don’t discuss classified programs or comment on alleged strikes".
US Drone Strikes in Pakistan¹ | ||
Confirmed | Possible | |
| Total US strikes | 364 | |
| Obama strikes | 312 | |
| Total reported killed | 2,640 | 3,474 |
| Civilians reported killed | 473 | 893 |
| Children reported killed | 176 | |
| Total reported injured | 1,270 | 1,433 |
| ¹ Correct at 8 February 2013 | ||
The lines of total killed, including civilians, total injured and total drone strikes, based on the minimum values for the respective data points, show a worrisome self-perpetuating trend of the CIA-led drone war in Pakistan. Started with the excuse of disrupting the chain of command of al-Qaeda and the Taliban, the drone attacks go on and on, killing and maiming ever increasing numbers of people, taking the lives of hundreds of civilian by-standers, and becoming a pure exercise of slaughtering without a shadow of a sensible justification.
Trends of US drone war in Pakistan¹ | ||||||||
Year | Drone strikes | Killed | Injuries | |||||
| Total | Cumulative | Children | Civilians | Total | Cumulative | Confirmed | Cumulative | |
| 2004 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 6 | 6 | 1 | 1 |
| 2005 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 15 | 21 | 1 | 2 |
| 2006 | 3 | 7 | 75 | 96 | 103 | 124 | 9 | 11 |
| 2007 | 5 | 12 | 4 | 37 | 161 | 20 | 31 | |
| 2008 | 38 | 50 | 30 | 74 | 268 | 429 | 216 | 247 |
| 2009 | 55 | 105 | 39 | 119 | 559 | 988 | 375 | 622 |
| 2010 | 128 | 233 | 17 | 97 | 897 | 1,885 | 351 | 973 |
| 2011 | 75 | 308 | 6 | 68 | 473 | 2,358 | 179 | 1,152 |
| 2012 | 48 | 356 | 2 | 7 | 246 | 2,604 | 111 | 1,263 |
| 2013 | 8 | 364 | 34 | 2,638 | 7 | 1,270 | ||
| Total | 364 | 176 | 473 | 2,638 | 1,270 | |||
| Average annual growth rate (2002-2012) | 62.24% | 59.07% | 80.16% | |||||
| ¹ Correct at 8 February 2013 | ||||||||
Sources: The Bureau of Investigative Journalism.
